Political Reincarnation

Joe McCarthy 1954 - Ted Cruz 2013

Bully for you, Mitten Ticklebritches!

“I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.” – Mitten Ticklebritches

Once a bully, always a bully? Take Governor Ticklebritches' attitudes and policies toward gays, immigrants, the poor, the unemployed, college students, people without health care insurance, and anyone else who can’t write him a six-digit check or help him land the job he covets.

And if you get in his way, get ready for a swift kick -- or perhaps a haircut. 

Today we’re expected to believe Mitt Romney's claim that he cannot recall a vicious attack he led against a high school classmate. It’s bad enough if the jokester is lying about his memory, but even worse if bullying comes so natural to him that the incident was easily forgotten.

But not to worry. If anybody was hurt by “a lot of high jinks and pranks during high school, obviously I apologize for that,” Romney chortled.

Obviously. He's "running for office, for Pete's sake!"

He does not apologize, however, for manipulating his memories. While he can't remember this incident, he can recall saving the U. S. auto industry. Really? Wanna bet? Ten thousand dollars?

Like his principles, Mitt's memories are free-floating: “I certainly don’t believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual.”

And he finds that explanation perfectly fine, no doubt even marvelous, or just the right height -- or at least good for a chuckle. Haha!

Here's Mitt being Mitt. Witness the mind of a bully.

Romney Apologizes After Reports of Bullying Emerge

When the going gets tough . . .

Republicans occasionally expose the hate that, when things are going their way, they keep hidden behind the sheets:

Top Tampa GOP Figure Circulates Joke About Killing Obama

McCain Campaign compares Obama to Hitler

Marianna teacher "told students what 'CHANGE' stood for"

Altered Obama photo in GOP club newsletter sparks outrage

A rage no one should be stoking

Update, Oct.18:

ORLANDO -- Echoing the angry rhetoric from the party's conservative base, Florida's top Republicans on Saturday warned that Barack Obama's "Marxist" plans would "kill" the economy. [....]

Paul Senft, a national committee member from Polk County, said, "There are those who come to this country to get away from socialism," he said before referring to Obama's tax and health care plans. "It's Marxist. It's communist. But let's just call it socialism."
-
Fla. GOP Assails Obama's Proposals

Today's knee-slapper: McCain's new 'running against Bush' line

At Wednesday night's debate, John McCain reminded Barack Obama that he is not George Bush.

Since then, the senator's new line of sarcasm, met with laughter and applause at his campaign rallies, has been, "If Barack Obama wanted to run against George Bush, he should have done that four years ago."

A more accurate observation is,

"If John McCain wanted to run against George Bush, he should have done that four years ago."

Not only has McCain supported Bush-Cheney and their most disastrous policies for eight long years -- I seem to recall a whole lotta hugging and kissing going on four years ago.

You can run, John, but you can't hide from your past.

But you're a great standup comedian.

Sarah Sensation, the runaway VP candidate

Not since the runaway bride has the US media focused so much attention on such little substance.

Media diversions: Jennifer Wilbanks and Sarah Palin

Members of the media elite (take the swooning news anchors, for example) have dusted off their vintage editions of Roget's Thesaurus for new adjectives to describe their latest product, the new, improved, bubble-wrapped hockey-mom action figure, Sarah Palin:

Tom Brokaw, NBC: “A very auspicious debut.”
Jeff Greenfield, CBS: “Perfect populist pitch.”
Wolf Blitzer, CNN: “It wasn’t just a home run, it may have been a grand slam.”
Chris Wallace (Fox), Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer (CNN), on cue: “A Star is Born.”

Those superlatives, gushed by aging men in their first reactions to Sarah's "scintillating" teleprompter reading at the Republican National Convention, foreshadowed the media love affair with the high-heeled pit bull.

Reality on the nation's airwaves is in short supply. Hold onto your hats -- or whatever else sparks your imagination. Picture Zena the Warrior Princess at the Daytona 500, Britney at the MTV Video Music Awards, Jennifer Wilbanks on a Greyhound bus to nowhere.

Sarah Barracuda is bigger. She has become the steam-regulating conductor of a political runaway train. Whoo hoo!

We can't avert our eyes because the male-dominated press, the shallow but well-paid hucksters for their corporate bosses, are blinding us with a hailstorm of atmospherics. We are, after all, watching the all too predictable behavior of the same hyperventilating watchdogs of democracy that gave us the "uniter" president, the "WMD" war, the "straight talk express" and, yes, the "runaway bride."

And, if it's within their power to focus the voters' attention away from the issues that actually matter -- things like the recurring national crises that keep us awake at night -- onto the McCain-Palin misdirection of the day, we may wake up November 5 to discover that nothing has changed.

Our only hope is that, for a change, voters see through the media diversions, recognize the straight talk express with a runaway conductor as another train wreck waiting to happen, and put the country first.

Deregulation: McCain's solution to everything

But that was then, this is now

Don't worry, be happy. It's morning in America all over again. The fundamentals of our economy are strong.

Like his hug-buddy W., John McCain supports the privatization of Social Security. Take that, Wall Street.

Like the man he once supported for president -- ex-Senator, current pal, bank lobbyist and economic adviser America-has-become-a-nation-of-whiners Phil Gramm -- McCain struts and crows and flaps his wings about his deregulation Credo.

Until, that is, it all becomes politically inconvenient when his fundamental economic philosophy -- i.e., the greed and mismanagement of Wall Street and Washington -- leads to today's financial meltdown.

But, get this: McCain proposes to do to health care what he and his buddies have done to the financial system.

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.
- John McCain, Better Care at lower cost for every American

So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago -- and promising that if we marketize health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry!
- Paul Krugman, McCain on banking and health

Cockadoodledoo.

Checking off the feminists' to-do list

"Sarah Palin may yet be the fulfillment of an old feminist prophecy that Texan Sissy Farenthold once described with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek.

"We will have achieved equality the day mediocre women take their place beside mediocre men.

"Check that one off the to-do list."

Ellen Goodman, The Traveling Pantsuits take a detour

Today's knee-slapper: The Republican 'mavericks'

Mavericks?

maverick: "an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party" - Merriam-Webster

Q: Does that definition apply to John McCain and Sarah Palin -- or are they morphing themselves into the "un-Republican ticket" to mislead voters?
A: "And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush." - John McCain

Q: How can you can tell when a politician -- one who finally convinced his party's base that he was the presidential candidate most committed to his party's agenda and to continuing the Bush-Cheney legacy -- is lying when he calls himself a "maverick"?
A: He blinks, he winks, and finally he squeezes out a mischievous grin that says, "You ain't seen nothing yet, my friends. There's plenty more where that one came from." Wink.

Q: How can you tell when a "pit bull with lipstick" is just a sideshow poodle with an attitude?
A: She depends on the same old Bush-Rove operatives and Washington lobbyists to concoct a special batch of "maverick" magenta for her national debut.

"Straight talk" McCain will say anything to win

John McCain faulted the Bush Administration in August of 2006 for not being honest with the American people in their rhetoric leading up to the War in Iraq, but who else led the American people to think that the occupation of Iraq would "be some kind of day at the beach?"

Listen to McCain in his own words . . .

• John McCain's Double Talk Express: A Day At The Beach
• John McCain Flip Flops on Gay Marriage

Why do people vote Republican?

It's occasionally good to remind ourselves of why some voters support the Republican Party. A list of reasons made the rounds a couple of years ago. I don't know its author, but one of the online sources is Extremely Smart Humor.

To vote Republican, one must accept these Articles of Faith:

1. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of gays, liberals, immigrants, Democrats and everyone else you hate and/or fear.

2. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find bin Laden" diversion.

3. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Viet Nam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

4. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U. N. resolutions against Iraq .

5. The best way to support the military is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

6. If adolescents are not informed of birth control measures, they won't have sex.

7. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism. HMO's and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

8. Having the top one percent of Americans become even more wealthy while more than 4.1 million Americans slip into poverty is a huge success for Bush economic policies.

9. Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in public schools.

10. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

11. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

12. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense, but a president lying to drum up support for a war in which thousands die — including well over 100,000 innocent civilians — is sound defense policy.

The McCain Brain Trust

Where does this team part ways with Bush-Cheney-Rice?

Give up? Me too.

John McCain shadowboxes Captain Peacock

Watching John McCain in last night's Republican debate, I saw a man who appears to have entered the early stages of dementia. Regardless of the question posed, Sen. McCain's rambling and frequently incoherent responses demonstrated an inability to focus on any matter beyond his self-aggrandizing pretensions of being smarter, wiser, and more patriotic than his opponents.

One side of McCain's brain seems stuck in the 1960's and some timeworn dream of personal glory, the other in 2000 and the wrongs inflicted on him by George W. Bush. He adds little to the national discussion on America’s future other than revelations of his own internal dialogue, which appears to mix past honor with present confusion, leaving little room for future solutions.

To Captain McCain, the world is, and always will be, a battlefield. He will "never surrender, they will" - and his definition of "they" is broad enough to land a fleet of fighter jets. In his mind only, he, of all the presidential candidates, knows how to lead people into battle. He must seethe at the very thought of Bush the avoider (Viet Nam) becoming Bush the decider (Iraq), then prancing in his bomber's drag across the deck of an aircraft carrier, an unearned display that should have been McCain's own "Mission Accomplished" shuffle. Instead, the also-ran of 2000 is left to grovel before his political nemesis, trying with all his might to convince the Republican Party that a real warrior deserves to become the country's commander in chief.

Despite his claims of brilliance on matters of foreign policy and national security - claims based on the personal experiences of his admirable military career, his imprisonment in Viet Nam, and his longevity in Washington - McCain’s belligerency would lead to unforeseen, unnecessary and counterproductive wars based on the same faulty logic that drove the country into Iraq and keeps us there. Two generations ago, the worldview to which he still clings led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths in Viet Nam - even after the end result was predictable. Had his discredited philosophy prevailed indefinitely - say, "for 100 years" - he probably would have died in a Viet Cong prison. Experience may count, but experience grounded in a half century of mistakes and irrational thinking does not make a person ready to lead a free people: it makes for a life of mistakes and irrational thinking.

Last night McCain sat within arm's reach of Mitt Romney and lied through his teeth about comments never made by Romney - all the while claiming to be a man of principle and "straight talk." This man is Richard Nixon without the peace sign, Dick Cheney without the wit, Zell Miller without the spitballs. My friends, John McCain is a man who should never be allowed to command the world's greatest military power, his ancient heart thumping to the drumbeat of war, one hand fondling the nuclear trigger and the other caressing Joe Lieberman's wish list of future conquests.

As much as I oppose the policy proposals of Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, I'll take their extremism over McCain's mania. The fact that so many Republican voters are willing to gamble the nation’s future on this unstable cold warrior is a frightening development in American politics.

Others watched the debate and saw a man to lead the free world: I saw a man who belongs in a Republican retirement center, fading into a Captain Peacock character - an old know-it-all strutting around the hot tub in his skivvies, living on cocktail olives and Viagara, reciting past glories to anyone within earshot - and always winning the battles still waging in his own skull.

---
Captain Peacock: Mrs. Slocombe, you will return to your post. When I turn around, you will raise your arm. I will ask, "What is it, Mrs. Slocombe?" You will ask me, "Are you free?" If I nod, you may then approach me.

---
"Doctors said sexually transmitted diseases among senior citizens are running rampant at a popular Central Florida retirement community, according to a Local 6 news report. A gynecologist at The Villages community [a Republican bastion] near Orlando, Fla., said she treats more cases of herpes and the human papilloma virus in the retirement community than she did in the city of Miami." - The Villages idiot: Bush 'the greatest president we've ever had'

Update to presidential predictions: Republicans

On February 18, 2007, I ranked Republicans’ chances for their party’s nomination: 1- Romney, 2- Jeb Bush, 3- Giuliani, 4- Hagel, 5- McCain, 6- Huckabee.

In the intervening months, Mayor "9-11" has practically disappeared without a trace. Giuliani’s mistake was coming to Florida – and staying. The more time he spent here, the less Florida liked him, just as many of us had expected when the “experts” were anointing “the country’s mayor” as the most worthy opponent to face Hillary in the fall. (National opinion polls at the time had him at 45-50% and higher. So much for name recognition polls.)

Sen. Hagel, to his credit, recognized that the Republican Party faithful would never forgive him for being right on the Iraq war, and he remains right on both counts. Whether he will join a Bloomberg Bull Moose Party remains an open question.

Sen. Thompson, the lobbyist/actor I ignored with good reason, flared briefly then dropped from sight after harrumphing himself through the early primaries and caucuses. I had expected him to last about three weeks from the time he announced his candidacy - but I could have been wrong: his decline probably started in less time. Still, I don't count him out as someone's attack dog in the fall campaign.

As we approach the Florida primaries this Tuesday, three men remain in the game. Little has changed since I made this comment about Gov. Huckabee last February: “As attractive as he could be to the average voter, I don't see Republican power brokers throwing their weight behind him. He's an outsider, from Arkansas, of all places.” His support among certain religious groups caught some observers by surprise, but Rev. Huckabee’s intentions of rewriting the Constitution to conform to his personal interpretations of selected Bible verses, along with his lack of funds, seem to have taken him out of contention for the top position.

My greatest prediction error was ranking Sen. McCain so low. Obviously the field of candidates appeared so dreadful, even to Republicans, that Lazarus was called up from the political graveyard. If they should settle on "Bomb, bomb Iran" McCain to head the ticket, perhaps the country will be given a clear choice of whether or not they agree that hundred-year wars, plural, are sustainable. One wonders how long the manipulated fears that took us into a disastrous mess can be used to keep us there.

Until proven wrong, which could happen two days from now, I continue to rank Romney first among Republicans. Everyone knew a year ago that he would adopt a highly conservative economic and social agenda for his campaign. Running slightly to the right of Attila the Hun, however, made him so patently artificial that many within his party do not trust him to remain true to his expressed agenda. I do. Mitt boy is the rich showoff who will do anything to prove his toughness to the bullies demanding a ride in Daddy’s Jag. To succeed, he becomes a bigger bully to everyone else. Being the hardnosed businessman that he is, we should not be surprised that he would study the Republican void and, like a high pressure salesman in a sharkskin suit, remake himself in the image of Jeb Bush. Mitt becomes Jeb, and why not? Jeb represents all that’s wrong with the Republican Party, so the marketing strategy could yield high returns. After all, someone has to fill the Republican leadership vacuum and Jeb can’t run – or can he? Would you bet against his becoming the Republican nominee if he could appear magically in the race tomorrow?

WHAAM! Hatemongering kicks into overdrive

The Wingnut Hatemongering Anti-America Machine (WHAAM!) is sick but very much alive.

WHAAM!-o #1, from Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee

BeliefNet Question: "Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations."

Rev. Huckabee: "Well, I don't think that's a radical view to say we're going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we're going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal." - 'The Lord truly gave me wisdom'

WHAAM!-o #2, from Faux Noose's John Gibson

Opening his radio show with funeral music yesterday, Fox News host John Gibson callously mocked the death of actor Heath Ledger, calling him a "weirdo" with a "serious drug problem."

Playing an audio clip of the iconic quote, "I wish I knew how to quit you" from Ledger's gay romance movie Brokeback Mountain, Gibson disdainfully quipped, "Well, he found out how to quit you."

Laughing, Gibson then played another clip from Brokeback Mountain in which Ledger said, "We're dead," followed by his own, mocking "We're dead" before playing the clip again.

And it goes downhill from there: John Gibson mocks 'weirdo' Heath Ledger's death

WHAAM!-o #3, from Westboro Baptist Church

"WBC will picket this pervert's funeral, in religious protest.

"God hates the sordid, tacky bucket of slime seasoned with vomit known as Brokeback Mountain - and He hates all persons having anything to whatsoever to do with it.

"Heath Ledger is now in Hell, and has begun serving his eternal sentence there." - Hate group to picket Ledger's funeral

Goodbye, Larry, we hardly knew you (thankfully)

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Republican Senator Larry Craig announced his [intended] resignation Saturday after being caught in an undercover sting allegedly soliciting sex with a man in an airport bathroom.

"It is with sadness and deep regret that I announce that it is my intent to resign from the Senate effective September 30," Craig said at a news conference in Boise, Idaho, the state he represents.

Try as I may, I find little compassion in my heart for a man who did everything within his power to destroy better men and women than himself. Hating oneself is one thing: transferring that hatred to others, whose only fault is living their lives as genuine human beings, is another.

When Larry Craig was not busy hanging out in restroom stalls, he was projecting a wide stance against gays and lesbians, their families and the people they love. His espoused policies perpetuated civil discrimination and a repressive atmosphere in which a group of men and women are denied basic human rights, some young people are driven to suicide, and still others are beaten to a pulp.

Craig adopted a strong anti-gay agenda as a cover for his innermost secrets, prowling for sexual kicks in such a sleazy fashion that the discretion of his restroom Romeos was practically guaranteed. Who would tell?

A liar, a coward, a hypocrite without a soul, Larry Craig covered his reprehensible activities by an even greater sin - bashing others.

He is caught. Time to pay the piper.

Let yer love flow

Whole lotta love
Senators Lott, Craig and Ashcroft in the Halycon Days

~*~

Just let your love flow like a mountain stream
And let your love grow with the smallest of dreams
And let your love show and you'll know what I mean
It's the season.

So let that feeling grab you deep inside
And send you reeling where your love can't hide
And then go stealing through the moonlit night
with your lover.

Let your love fly like a bird on the wing
And let your love bind you to all living things
And let your love shine and you'll know what I mean
That's the reason.


- With no offense to the Bellamy Brothers: Live performance
- See also Stewart and Colbert, 2001: The Singing Senators

Presidents' Day presidential predictions: Republicans

Here it is mid-February 2007, Presidents' Day, and the world "awaits" my picks to win the presidential super bowl - the biggest game in politics, still a year away. Predicting each political party's eventual nominee almost a year before the first vote is cast makes about as much sense as forecasting the 2008 Super Bowl. But the odds do not scare a skilled prognosticator such as myself. ha.

So, here goes my Pat Robertson-style prophecy, listing the ego trippers' names in order of their chances of winning the party nomination. (OK, God speaks to Pat more than me; I'm not even Republican.) Tomorrow I'll assess the Democrats' chances, but today the focus is on Republicans. As always, exercise caution. Results may vary.

Republicans Ranked by Nomination Probability

1. Mitt Romney
2. Jeb Bush
3. Rudy Giuliani
4. Chuck Hagel
5. John McCain
6. Mike Huckabee
7. Newt Gingrich
8. Sam Brownback
Others: Hunter, Gilmore, Tommy Thompson, Pataki, Bloomberg, et al

John McCain is losing whatever credibility he ever had, even with Republicans. Proposing a massive escalation of the debacle in Iraq (with troops, materiel and support that were not available) will be recognized as cynical positioning to deflect blame onto others for losing the war. Kissing W.'s ring (and more) for eight years and plunging headfirst into Jerry Falwell's baptismal pool will be seen by voters for what they are worth: nothing.

Rudi Giuliani will never be supported by the religious wrong unless he can convince them he has done a 180 on the social issues. So long as Falwell, Dobson and the other theocracy-minded puritans have any other acceptable choice with a chance of winning the general election, they will not settle for an empty suit in high heels. Staying alive and walking the streets of New York City after 9/11, instead of crawling into a hole and whimpering, does not in their view cancel Rudy's unpardonable sin of spending his nights in the sanctuary of the unholy (the home of gay men).

When the two leading candidates begin falling in the polls, who will move up? Mitt Romney, perhaps. Despite his changed positions on social issues (not changing but changed, as of his latest announcement), Romney has repented his evil ways (and he really, really loves his one wife), making himself acceptable to the hardliners if he can sell the penitence act, and I think he can. Once he gathers up the hoes and the pitchforks, and goes marching off to slay the evil dragons of liberalism, his mistakes of the past will be forgiven. Romney's Mormon religion could prove to be a plus, not a minus, among evangelical voters, and he's already following in Ronald Reagan's footsteps: "This is the way, walk ye in it." (Isaiah 30:21) All Mitt is missing now is Ronnie's hair stylist and the rusty halo.

Chuck Hagel could face more problems than Romney simply because he split with his party on Iraq. The wingnuts will find that hard to forgive, and his presence on the ticket would be a constant reminder of how deadly wrong all the others were. Still, Republicans will do most anything to win, and Hagel is not only a mid-West conservative who won 83% of his state's vote in his 2002 reelection, but he is a (sometimes) straight-shooting Vietnam war hero - without the McCain baggage. In what could become a strange turn, a vote for Hagel could give rank-and-file Republican voters some feeling of redemption for following Bush off the cliff: "I voted for Chuck after I voted for W."

Should neither McCain, Giuliani, Romney nor Hagel take a formidable lead by the end of this year, however, party bigshots may be scrambling for a compromise candidate. Mike Huckabee is well-positioned, but so far, not well known. As attractive as he could be to the average voter, I don't see Republican power brokers throwing their weight behind him. He's an outsider, from Arkansas, of all places. Right now, "Huckaberry" and Haley look more like VP options - and either man would take the deal in a heartbeat. (Forgive the unintended use of weight, heartbeat and VP all in the same sentence.)

Who, then, if no one makes the big break toward the end zone, would the party turn to? Gingrich? I doubt it. Newt may be the GOP "ideas man," but his jabbering won't play well in the heat of battle (one reason he's holding off for now), and I don't think the party would risk taking him and his history into the general election. Brownback and Hunter, like Bauer and Keyes in 2000, will scare the bejesus out of more moderate voters, and it's doubtful any of the lesser candidates (other than Bloomberg or Fred Thompson, if they were to enter the race) will have the financial backing to challenge the big boys.

That leaves one player of some stature on the sidelines. And, yes, he's a Bush. If the others throw themselves into a mid-field brawl, Jeb Bush could become the one candidate that all the party factions could rally around. Traditional wisdom may be that George has destroyed Jeb's chances, at least for 2008. But Jeb is not George, and if the others flounder in the big game, Jeb could be the hero coming off the bench to the cheers of the GOP faithful. I'm not ready to move him up to first place yet, but we shouldn't forget, "he's the smart one."

These predictions may be far-fetched - and a Hollywoodie ex-senator could change the political Nielsons overnight - but keep in mind that Republicans are not imaginative. Right or wrong, orders come from above. Once the team owners anoint the new quarterback, the team players and fans will assume their assigned positions and never question the call. To Republicans, winning ain't everything; it's the only thing.

Jeb Bush will run for president, book says

TALLAHASSEE - ''Jeb Bush is going to hate this book.''

That's the opening salvo in a 370-page broadside by a veteran Capitol journalist who is convinced that Florida's most famous ex-governor wants to be president. In ''JEB: America's Next Bush,'' reporter Shirish Date advances a plausible-on-paper scenario for Florida's 43rd governor to run for the nation's highest elective office.

Date writes the run could happen even as soon as next year, despite Bush's repeated denials of national ambition.

• Jeb will run, book says

I have no doubt that Jeb's goal for quite some time, probably most of his life, has been the White House. Too bad for him, Big Brother's disastrous presidency got in the way.

Even so, if no "conservative" candidate breaks out of the Republican pack by Fall, the party kingmakers could turn to Jeb! in a carpetbagger's minute. He's still the person most capable - even more than Newt, perhaps - of uniting the competing factions within the Grand-amoral Old Party.

In fact, the odds of being pulled into the '08 presidential race may be better for Jeb Bush than for Al Gore - but wouldn't a campaign between the two of them be fun to watch? Stay tuned.

Previous posts . . .

• Aug. 20, 2005 - Jeb Bush: "Why am I not believable?"
• Nov. 17, 2005 - Poll: Florida vote for Jeb! as president unlikely

Republicans still playing a cynical game

"They were right," admitted Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida, the third-ranking Republican in the House, when asked the difference between what Democrats are doing and the tactics used by the previous Republican majority to undercut criticism of the war.

"It was a game and we got beat. ... It was clearly a ploy, and I think we paid a price for stuff like that in November."

No, congressman, it was not a game. "It" was the nation's business and you failed.

Admitting past sins -- while pointing them out in the new Democratic majority -- seems to be one step to sobriety and voter sympathy in the long run-up to elections in 2008. Two other steps in the program are retrenching behind themes of fairness and fiscal conservatism that helped Republicans take power in 1994.

Fairness and responsibility - concepts the Republicans failed to grasp in all the years they controlled Congress.

But, now they see the light. On with the game. Right, congressman?

"We can talk about the fiscal restraint piece of the Republican brand," said Putnam, chairman of the House Republican Conference. "It becomes more comfortable ground for us to stand on. They're the ones that have to balance" competing interests.

• GOP admits some sins, now accuses Democrats

Update - Feb. 9, 2007 - The Republicans' water boy continues his "game" with more trash talk:

Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida, the No. 3 Republican leader, called Pelosi's desire for a large transport plane "an extravagance of power that the taxpayers won't swallow." [....]

But (White House spokesman) Snow on Thursday said the negotiations over Pelosi's transport have been conducted solely by the House sergeant-at-arms and the Pentagon.

• White House defends Pelosi access to Air Force transport plane

More on the story . . . .

• House security chief: Pelosi didn't ask for plane
• DeLay sees Putnam as 'worthy successor'
• WSJ raises questions about 2003 Putnam trip
• Top GOP job pushes and pulls Putnam

The party's over